Whether a new year, a new job, a new project, Day 1 is exciting, anticipatory, hopeful. You have plans and goals. There’s also uncertainty, but on Day 1, that uncertainty is exhilarating. Success is not a foregone conclusion, and it’s not clear how you’ll get there if you make it. But the uncertainty is filled with the promise of what could be, dreams of What if it works?

Jeff Bezos has talked about maintaining “Day 1” mentality at Amazon. Day 1 means always acting like the company is a startup. The interpretation many take away is that Day 1 is keeping innovation and creativity. Bezos went on to say that “‘Day 2’ is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.”

But Day 2 is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the collision of dreams with reality. It’s the start of getting down to business, the big issues and the minutiae about what this project is going to take. It’s learning just how much you don’t know. It’s confronting the magnitude of the plan and taking the next step, which seems so far removed from the end goal. It’s putting together task lists, timetables, budgets, sub-aims. It’s lacing up your shoes and heading for that workout even though it’s dark and cold and you’re tired and you’d rather lounge. It’s realizing you have a lot to learn for your new job, and you’re sort of on your own for it, and finding a way to push through that and find your way to get things done. It’s opening up a writing prompts page and not connecting with them but deciding to write anyway.*

At times, Day 2 will be tedious and frustrating. Keeping some Day 1 enthusiasm, remembering why you’re doing this can help you push through. Day 2 will demand some creativity and innovation of its own. Day 2 isn’t stasis or irrelevance or decline or death. Day 2 is when you begin to face uncertainty and turn the glowing ideas of Day 1 into something real.

A writing itch returned, and I’m trying to write through Januwordy. I had impressions about today’s prompts, but nothing that I wanted to write. So I started writing this post, and within a minute had already pulled in the prompt for today, “uncertainty”.

I have spent a bit of time this year on mountain trails. Water travels from one place to another, sometimes with grace and timidity, sometimes with noise and power. It takes the plunge off cliffs. It rolls gently down mountain faces.

When it rains, which it does quite often here, the water travels in more places. It drenches the path worn by the feet of humans and other animals. It flows as it does anywhere else it collects.

The traverse of water is not direct, at least not in the way humans tend to think. It does not cut the shortest path between two points. It meanders. It moves where gravity and momentum pull and push it.

When it encounters a barrier, water sometimes finds another path around and continues its journey forward. Other times, it comes to a halt and must wait until it has built up enough to flow over the barrier. And at yet other times, it is carried with sufficient force—the strength and momentum it has gained—that the water powers over or under the obstacle in its way.

The traverse of water is not direct, but it is efficient and effective. When the rain has stopped, the source has gone dry, or the flow has changed paths, the signs of the waters prior presence remains.

As you read posts scattered around all corners of the internet, it seems inevitable that this time of year brings time in reflection. And here I find myself putting words of similar nature to a (web)page, though much has been kicking around in my head for a while.

Posting to this blog has been… sporadic (at best) for a few years now. There are reasons (there always are, and sometimes quite good ones). I admire folks like Doctor Zen who have maintained consistency over the years. My best intentions are never quite realized. I’m a slow writer, and there are so many things that draw time and attention.

I sometimes consider: Why do I keep the blog around? Why did I blog in the first place?

Those who’ve been around a while and gained a following in some circles over time often say (and I have to): You’ve got to do it for you! You blog first and foremost because you want to do it. You want to write. You want to process ideas. You want to clarify and crystallize the workings in your own mind. It doesn’t matter if no one reads it.

Except… it does, to some extent, doesn’t it? Blogs are in public spaces for others to read. Otherwise we’d write some things in a private journal and be done with it. We share on the world wide web, whether through blogs or other platforms, in part to connect with other people. But as popularity of a platform waxes and then wanes, making those connections can become harder.

Add to that, as life moves forward, we change. Our interests shift. Our styles turn. Our positioning in both formal and informal communities changes—and the communities change too. We lose the attention of some. What we have to say resonates with others. We maybe are looking for a different way to connect—a different level of formality or openness or depth or speed or familiarity.

I’ve been reflecting on these things a while. But I still haven’t reached any firm conclusions. I’m not quite ready to let go of the blog. I’m not quite ready to commit to a new venture. In part, 2018 brought big changes—a cross-country, a new job, co-habitation with my partner, new running goals*. It takes time for the turbulence to settle, for the new routine to feel routine.

So I’ll bide my time, continue to reflect, maybe dabble with some ideas. And we’ll see what 2019 brings.

* If you’re at all interested in the running side of things, you can follow that on the blog Boundary Conditions and associated Twitter account @RunningBoundary.

We have these tidy, polished narratives we tell. We tell them to ourselves to rationalize, to justify, to remind us of why we’re here, why we’re enduring. We tell them to others to convince them of our investment, our devotion, our clarity of mind. We file down and polish away the imperfections that don’t serve whatever purpose we’re working toward now. They’re the stories we tell, the stories we’re told to tell, even when our minds are anything but clear, certain, committed.

Then there are the other stories. They’re messy, honest. They’re the stories of living, failing, getting lost, finding our way, loving, hurting, giving our all to discover it’s not enough. They’re the experiences we bury and try to ignore. They’re the secrets we whisper into the dark.

But sometimes we need something more than the darkness can offer. So we tell these stories to strangers.

And there are places for us to share. Basements and rooms of anonymous souls. Seats at the bar or on the train by someone many orbits outside our professional and personal lives. Stages before crowds assembled to hear “human” stories but where we can’t (or don’t have to) focus on a single face. The ether of the internet where we can put forth words without interruption… and then either watch the response or close the window and not revisit it again.

This week, I listened as a panel of 4 accomplished women shared stories of their mistakes and failings with a room of 100+ people. Asked what it was like to share such stories, one of them (Renee Erickson) said it was “terrifying.” Sharing stories of when we failed, or think we failed, are indeed frightening. What if no one gets it? What if I really am the screw-up I imagine myself to be? What if… what if… It’s a little easier with some cover of anonymity or pseudonymity. I imagine it must be a bit easier when you have some accomplishments and accolades between you and that time of your life.

Responding to the same question, another woman (Trish Millines Dziko) said, “Telling a room that is 99.9% strangers is… freeing.” And that is also true. We need someone to hear (or read), to bear witness. We need someone to know our experience of that moment. Perhaps we just need some reaction, any reaction, from someone who’s not entangled in our story.

These stories can lend authenticity to the people we are—or the personas we present—in the world.

Most of all, I think we need others to know they’re not alone. And in doing so, we hope to find that we are not alone.

I can’t help but think what beauty and wonder we might achieve if we could tell these stories more freely to friends and colleagues, to those who are now or one day might be part of our circles.

But for now, and for some time to come, these are stories we save for strangers.

——

Marquita Qualls (@DrQualls) recently invited me to have a STEMulating Conversation, and at the end, we touched on the value and rationale of sharing personal stories. You can listen to a bit of my story here: https://overcast.fm/+JafmmT5ZI/37:56

It’s funny… As my life becomes more frenetic, I’ve found myself more consistently making time in the early morning to catch up on my RSS feeds.

This morning, I saw Megan Poorman’s post about setting a theme for the year, instead of writing resolutions. She writes:

Having a theme for the year is almost like setting a mantra. It serves as a guiding principle when making decisions and reflecting on events. Setting a theme removes the daily pressure of measuring yourself against something you wish you were and encourages a holistic approach to self-awareness.

Megan’s themes are short, action states. For instance, her them for 2018 is “Take ownership.”

But the idea of a theme also called to mind a TED Talk by Shonda Rhimes on her “year of saying yes”:

(Her book is Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person. Check out a short review here.)

Inspired by these, I’m setting a theme for 2018:

Year of building

Megan notes that setting a theme requires self-reflection, which usually means time to think. Yet my theme materialized almost immediately, perhaps because life events have prompted considerable self-reflection.

In the next 2 months, I’m taking a new job in a new city, where my partner and I will co-habitate at last after 4+ years of a long-distance relationship. So 2018 means building a new life together. Building my cred and reputation with a new team and boss. Those are givens. But it’s easy to focus on what’s right in front of you and to neglect other elements that are critical for finding happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment. I need to build a community and network outside of work and family. I want to build my fitness and wellbeing. I want to find ways to serve communities.

Building takes different forms. The obvious is creating something new. But it can also be adding on to or adapting foundations and structures. It can be re-building structures that perhaps were damaged or neglected a while.

Building requires prioritizing. It’s not just about making something pretty or flashy. It has to be structurally sound and functional first.

And building takes time. It’s a complex process. It takes a while to create something that will last.

When you watch something under construction, sometimes it looks like little has changed for weeks or months, despite the hours of work going in. Then suddenly it’s something that looks like the start of an edifice. You can begin to see the progress each day. Then it seems to stall again. But there’s work being done out of the public view.

So here’s to patience, perseverance, and creativity. And a year of building in 2018.

What will your theme be?